


Somebody Catch My Breath

by chucks_prophet



Series: The Day We Stopped Turning [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Comforting Castiel, Crying Dean, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Firefighter Dean, Grieving Dean, Heavy Angst, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, September 11 Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7130204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dean—"</p><p>"Don't," Dean begs. "Please, just… don't say it."</p><p>Cas knows it's an antiquated line to say to someone going through something. He isn't stupid, just hopeful. Blue, red, sometimes those wires cross in his head and create a potential fire hazard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somebody Catch My Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read as a stand alone fic, as there are new storylines introduced, but it does follow the story before this.
> 
> Title inspired by a song on an album that helped me power through a fic not once, but twice. Thank you, Blurryface. ("Goner" by Twenty One Pilots. Seriously, go check it out.)

_The ghost of you_

_Is close to me_

 

_I'm inside out_

_You're underneath_

Cas closes the door on the first day of his new job—not Executive Manager of the biggest firm since Roman Enterprises, but Assistant Manager at the Gas N' Sip a couple blocks up the road.

It isn't his dream job, but nuking taquitos and being mistaken for the old Assistant Manager Steve pays the bills until he can find something more permanent.

Permanent. What an odd word considering New York is in shambles.

Cas turns the lock on the garage door and sets his keys on the coffee table before flipping on the lights. Hopefully Dean waited up for him. There's something he'd like to try before his head hits the pillow.

Disorderly chaos puts it mildly. The depression-era oil lamp Cas brought from his apartment, a gift from his late Aunt Amara, who allegedly stole it from his estranged father, and Dean claims could be a great bong, dresses the carpet with broken and faded orange shards of yesteryear. The 30 inch plasma screen TV Dean brought from his place, because Cas needs to be more “modernized”, lies face up next to the three-legged coffee table. Cas almost punctures another softball-size hole in it just maneuvering around the room.

At least he waited up.

“Dean?” he calls, looking both ways across the traffic-less house before calling out again: “Dean?”

Silence, the two-timing mistress, answers him.

Cas whips out his cell, scrolling through his endless contacts list until he finds the name. One ring later, the person on the other hand pulls out a sleep heavy, “ _Hello?”_

“Benny, hey, it’s Cas, um… I know it’s kinda late, but—”

“ _Cas,”_ Benny says with more than a pinch of urgency, “ _what’s going on? Are you okay? Is Dean—?”_

“I’m okay, I just wish I could say the same for Dean, he’s…”

_“What?”_

“I’m not sure where he is,” Cas confesses. “I just got off work to find the house completely trashed, and he’s not home, and-and—”

“ _Ah, okay. First of all, breathe. Are ya breathin’?”_

“Yes.” A lie.

There’s a pause on the other end. _“Dean, he… we’re all goin’ through a rough time. Sometimes it just gets’ta be too much, you know? Guys like us, we’ve seen so much bad—things our nightmares wishes they could be.”_

“So you’re saying…”

 _“He’s alright,”_ Benny confirms. “ _Aside from a busted hand, maybe.”_

“Wow, that’s startlingly accurate.”

_“Like I said, we’re all goin’ through a rough time.”_

“Well, I mean, where do you think he—?” Cas interrupts his own rapid thoughts, drinking in an object lying on the recliner. There are clothes strung like slaughterhouse meat on the couch, a couple cracked DVDs… but the one thing that sticks out is a picture frame, which sits partially leaned on the recliner like it just walked up and plopped itself down. Cas picks it up, running over the untouched photo.

Arranged like a low-budget high school yearbook photo, are a group of surly men and women. In the backdrop is a brick structure with firetrucks poking out of three different entryways and red letters up top spelling FIRE. Those in the front row with white t-shirts don’t so much as cut a fart, so straight-faced—all but one man with sun-kissed hair and light brown freckles. He’s got his head thrown back, revealing a rondure of peppermint white teeth.

What’s really neat about the photograph is the man’s reaction is like a strong perfume: The guys behind him—a handful Cas recognizes, Benny, Victor, Gordon, Cesar, and Jesse—catch a whiff of the euphoria he’s putting off, and try to steel themselves for the sake of the scene.

_“Hey, so, uh…” Benny fumbles over his words like the star quarterback (the man’s certainly built that way, anyway) with a concussion as he pulls Cas to the side, away from the restless chatter of the others. “Alright, look, ‘m from Louisiana, an’ ta be honest, this whole libertarianism shtick NYC’s got goin’s fried my noodle a little, so I’m just gonna give it to you straight up: How long have you been seein’ my best friend?”_

_Cas laughs, causing him to inhale a weeks’ worth of coffee fumes, “You mean Dean? We’re not seeing each other.”_

_“When are you gonna see each other?” Benny presses, unfazed._

_“Next week, probably. Unless my cat decides to stay out of trouble.”_

_Benny shakes his head and bites the inside of his cheek with a grin. “You two are fuckin’ made for each other.”_

Cas isn’t sure how long his head’s been in the clouds, but Benny’s voice pulls him out: “ _Hey, you still with me?”_

“Where do you think he went?”

“I _think_ ,” Benny says, _“he’s closer than you think.”_

Cas is about to ask what he means until the dial tone hums tediously in his ear.

Closer than he thinks. The Impala was in the garage when Cas parked his Continental. How far could he—?

Cas spins on his heels towards the garage door again. Sure enough, cracking it open, he can see Dean, hunched over the steering wheel, under the illumination of the overhead car light. 

Cas breathes a sigh of relief before sauntering to the passenger’s side and stepping in.

Next to him, Cas can see the dark, weary waves underneath Dean’s eyes, face washed out from the hard light enough to match the streaks of ash in his fair, mussed hair. He’s wearing his equally faded AC/DC shirt and a pair of checkered flannel PJs—the same thing he went to bed in the night before. His bloodied fingers twitch on the steering wheel every now and again, as if grasping for something out of reach, but his eyes don’t leave the unforeseeable road.

Cas doesn’t touch him. Not yet. He’s been touched enough by everything else over the past few months. Instead he stares ahead at a Jenga-style mountain of move-in boxes. “I can’t believe this car still runs.”

Dean’s voice is small at first when he replies, “Yours either.”

“Well, you know, a fourteen pound cat didn’t fall on _my_ hood.”

“She’s a Chevy,” Dean says a little clearer, “built to outlast calcium, lime, or _purr_ -ust stains.”

“ _Cat_ -cium would’ve worked, too.”

“Or _Fe-_ lime.”

"Dean—"

"Don't," Dean begs. "Please, just… don't say it."

Cas knows it's an antiquated line to say to someone going through something. He isn't stupid, just hopeful. Blue, red, sometimes those wires cross in his head and create a potential fire hazard. Like Lady MacBeth scrubbing her hands free of the blood of her victims, he knows Dean's likely to keep trying before he comes to terms with his decision. And even though that kills Cas, knowing there's nothing he can do but stand by and watch his best friend in the entire universe slowly unravel, he has to let it happen. He has to let Dean work through it.

Maybe not by redecorating the house Ty Pennington style, but—“Still want to marry me?”

Cas feels like a fly snapped out of his thoughts by a quick, invisible rubber band. “Of course I still want to marry you, assbutt,” he responds, scoffing as he turns to face him. “Why—?”

“I’m a monster.”

Cas’s face sinks. “You’re not a monster, you’re just grieving.” That’s when Dean finally turns to Cas, eyes somehow still so vibrant with greens and golds as a sob chokes him. “Come here,” Cas says before Dean’s throwing himself at Cas like a beggar in the streets. Cas takes this as his cue to touch him now, secures him with both hands on his back before draping him across his body so they’re lying on the long leather seat.

When Dean speaks again, it’s against Cas’s white, wet blouse: “I-I almost l-lost you… I _did,_ I did lose you… lost you for a whole three hours, and I couldn’t da-do a damn thing with the roads b-blocked…then… then the crew, my frie-ends, my-my—” There’s a pause, an intake of air, and then Dean’s looking at him through a red everything. “I could’ve done something. I could’ve… I could’ve tried.”

“How?” Cas asks. When Dean turns away, Cas places both hands on his burning hot face. “How, Dean? How could you’ve known about something like that? How could you’ve known about the end of the fucking world?”

Dean shakes his head, but doesn’t shake out of Cas’s embrace. “I didn’t,” he whispers, “God, I swear I didn’t…”

“I know, baby,” Cas says before kissing a haste, messy line from his temple to the corner of his jaw and pulling him back in. “I know. I believe you. I know.”

 

 

_Don't let me be gone._

_Don't let me be gone._

_Don't let me be gone._

_Don't let me be gone._

_Don't let me be._

_Don't let me be._


End file.
